And now for the half time show. "At least they have a good band."

Well it is now three months down and three months to go. And much to Jim's dismay it will only be three more months. Actually there has been allot of talk and rumors here in town about next winter. Raytheon is projecting a several million dollar shortfall for next years budget, and so they have submitted a winter season plan for McMurdo that only has enough people to keep the town open. To give you an idea, last winter in MacTown there was about 230 people on station and this coming winter plan is around 90. So allot of people that come down every year will be out a job and so there is a ton of discussion about this subject around town. I suspect that the final numbers will fall somewhere between last years and the proposal, but it leaves allot of people uncertain for now. I have even hear a rumor about keeping the station open for another month at the end of the season, kind of like WINFLY at the end of the year. This would get some of the winter work done before the winter season. But that rumor isn't very strong right now.

So after three months here I am getting used to the place. Some things are very different from the states. One example is that nothing, or almost nothing is locked here. You can walk into almost any building at any time day or night. And may people never lock there dorm rooms. I have a large Snap-On tool box assigned to me at work. The type you would see in any dealership in the states. It is likely worth $5000 with the tools inside. For the first few weeks I would lock it at night, then I realized that it was just a pain to lock and unlock it everyday. Everyone has a similar box and none of use own them. If I need another tool I just go to the tool room and get one. People leave there laptops and backpacks sitting on the coat racks while they go for dinner with no problems. It is very nice to live like this.

The people that we meet are usually very interesting and very nice. Allot of returning people have traveled all around the world and have very interesting lives off of "the ice". And most people want to be here, this is not the average job that you stumble into and you put up with 9 to 5 everyday. The jobs can be very dull, but the job is just a means to an end. It either gets people to "the ice" or it affords them to take 6 or 7 months off a year.

And for this weeks news, Paula and I got a two day weekend this week. It is only my second two day weekend since we have gotten here. And next weekend is Thanksgiving and so we get another two day weekend next week. It is a very nice change. We didn't do much exciting on our day off other than rest and do some chores. We also went to tour the powerplant. A friend of ours is a mechanic at the powerplant and he suggested that we come down for a tour since they had one of the six generators down for a 20,000 hours overhaul. At 20,000 hours they do a complete engine overhaul. This is a big task when you are talking about a V-16 CAT engine. The crankshaft along weighs 1500 lbs. Unfortunately our friend Matt is at the South Pole for a week working so we didn't get to see allot of the engine overhaul, but instead there was a bored GA (general assistant) there and he gave us a full tour of the powerplant, waterplant and wastewater plant. It is an interesting system that they have here. Currently they have six 900kW generators in one building and 3 reverse osmosis water purifiers in another building. There is a major construction project going on right now to redistribute the facilities. The waterplant will now house 2 RO units and two 1400kW generators. And then the powerplant will house 1 RO unit and 4 generators. This way if a building burns down the other building can support the town. Also they have a very impressive waste heat recovery system for the generators. The coolant and exhust heat from the generators is transfered to a coolant loop that is piped all around town to heat most of the dorms and the galley. This increases the fuel effiency of the powerplant greatly.

Well that is enough rambling on from me. Thanks to everone for their comments and e-mails. It is nice to here from people. Even if I don't have any photos of the new ambulance yet.

And since the only photos that I have taken this week have been of broken Ford transmission parts I will leave you with stolen photos from the public folder. They are from Lake Bonney which is a permanently ice covered lake in the Dry Valleys to the West of McMurdo. I just liked the photos because they look to me like the Ice Ages and glaciers crossing the continents.

Enjoy.
R.J.